Search results

Previous research finds that nongovernmental organization (NGO) publicity strategies—despite digital technologies—continue to focus heavily on garnering coverage in the mainstream news media. Drawing on theories of path dependence and interviews with NGO professionals, this paper identifies three factors that explain why this should be so. First, donors continue to value media coverage as a platform to learn about advocacy groups, as well as a mechanism for measuring their impact on political discourse. Second, political officials still value media coverage as a way to learn about advocacy demands. Third, NGOs occupy a position that is socially proximate to journalism, which leads the former to see the latter as an ally in the pursuit of publicity. Together, these factors confirm and extend the new institutional concept of "path dependence" by demonstrating how path dependence in one field (philanthropy, politics) can reinforce path dependence in another (NGO). These "reinforcing path dependencies" in turn interact with established mechanisms of institutional production (start-up costs, feedback effects, knowledge accumulation) to explain why NGOs continue to persist in media-centered publicity strategies despite new technological possibilities.

AbstractLong recognized as key players in international politics, non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) increasingly assume important roles in the provision of news. By hiring photographers, staffing online departments and funding reporting trips, NGOs act in ways that overlap with the actions of professional journalists. This article reviews and evaluates an emerging area of research – the study of NGO–journalist relations – that analyzes these developments. It proceeds in four parts: First, it overviews changes in the NGO and journalism sectors that drive growing scholarly interest in the topic. Second, it summarizes the findings of the available research. Third, it suggests some of the ways in which this research connects with concerns in the sociology of media and communication. Fourth, it evaluates the findings in light of various normative frameworks of public discourse. It concludes by suggesting that NGO–journalism scholarship can benefit from further attention by sociologists working in the areas of media and communication.

This article examines the role of humanitarian and human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in producing global news content in light of legacy news media's shrinking international footprint. Using original interviews, NGO documents, and content analysis, it finds that different types of funding, government relationships, organizational dynamics and desired impacts tend to be associated with divergent publicity strategies. In particular, some NGOs target the prestige press to engage with political elites, while others use the general news media to attract new audiences for fund-raising and educational purposes. The implications of these findings, both for international news and scholarly analysis of civil society, are discussed in the conclusion.

"This agenda-setting volume brings together leading scholars of media and public life to grapple with how media research can make sense of the massive changes rocking politics and the media world. Each author identifies a "most pressing" question for scholars working at the intersection of journalism, politics, advocacy, and technology. The authors then suggest different research approaches designed to highlight real-world stakes and offer a path toward responsive, productive action. Chapters explore our "datafied" lives, journalism's deep responsibilities and daunting challenges, media's inclusions (and non-inclusions), the riddle of digital engagement, and the obligations scholars must attempt to meet in an era of networked information. The result is a rich forum that addresses how media ransformations carry serious implications for public life. Original, provocative, and generative, this book is international in its orientation and makes a compelling case for public scholarship"--

PurposeRapid sensitivity analysis and near-optimal decision-making in contested environments are valuable requirements when providing military logistics support. Port of debarkation denial motivates maneuver from strategic operational locations, further complicating logistics support. Simulations enable rapid concept design, experiment and testing that meet these complicated logistic support demands. However, simulation model analyses are time consuming as output data complexity grows with simulation input. This paper proposes a methodology that leverages the benefits of simulation-based insight and the computational speed of approximate dynamic programming (ADP).Design/methodology/approachThis paper describes a simulated contested logistics environment and demonstrates how output data informs the parameters required for the ADP dialect of reinforcement learning (aka Q-learning). Q-learning output includes a near-optimal policy that prescribes decisions for each state modeled in the simulation. This paper's methods conform to DoD simulation modeling practices complemented with AI-enabled decision-making.FindingsThis study demonstrates simulation output data as a means of state–space reduction to mitigate the curse of dimensionality. Furthermore, massive amounts of simulation output data become unwieldy. This work demonstrates how Q-learning parameters reflect simulation inputs so that simulation model behavior can compare to near-optimal policies.Originality/valueFast computation is attractive for sensitivity analysis while divorcing evaluation from scenario-based limitations. The United States military is eager to embrace emerging AI analytic techniques to inform decision-making but is hesitant to abandon simulation modeling. This paper proposes Q-learning as an aid to overcome cognitive limitations in a way that satisfies the desire to wield AI-enabled decision-making combined with modeling and simulation.

This article examines recent efforts to bring 'solutions journalism' – an approach to news coverage developed in the United States that encourages journalists to propose potential solutions to social problems – to the French regional press. Drawing on interviews and company documents from news organizations, we show that solutions journalism has found support among both management and journalists, though for different reasons. Whereas management see solutions journalism as a way to bolster shrinking audiences, journalists perceive an opportunity to regain relevance in diversified media companies whose emphasis on news has declined over time. Though solutions journalism changes little in terms of journalist's everyday practices, its presence legitimates and valorizes marketing discourses, as journalists use it to describe efforts to grow audiences, boost sales and monetize content. As a result, we suggest that solutions journalism's primary effect on the French regional press may be its operation as a 'Trojan horse' for marketing.

This study examines whether news is more or less homogeneous online than in print across agenda-setting news outlets in the United States, Denmark, and France. Examining similarities and differences in the genres, topics, and authors of news in each country's leading newspapers, it finds little evidence of greater online homogeneity in any country. U.S. news outlets are more differentiated online than in print, while French news outlets have similar levels of print and online differentiation. Online data for Denmark reveal no consistent pattern in the direction of either homogeneity or differentiation. These findings suggest that the differentiating effects of the online environment are strongest in countries (e.g., the United States) where media markets are being restructured to include more direct competition between agenda-setting news outlets at the national level. By contrast, countries (e.g., France and, to a lesser degree, Denmark) with high levels of print differentiation have similarly high levels online due to the path-dependent effects of their national media systems.

This article explores the state of public policy preferences between the United States and Mexico in the realm of foreign policy in the context of the post‐9/11 world, democratic change within Mexico, and the immigration protests within the United States. Specifically, we will analyze the differences and possible convergence of public policy views on the issues of terrorism, immigration, free trade agreements, drug trafficking, and foreign policy. We find that although there are differences of opinion, particularly in the application of force in Iraq and on the benefits of free trade, there still remains a significant degree of positive convergence within the policy issues of terrorism, immigration, and drug trafficking. Although there are institutional impediments to progressive policy change, future relations between the United States and Mexico do not need to be contentious as long as the focus is on the similarities, rather than the differences, in public preferences between the populations of the two states.